A special part of the collection is composed of custom hand made presentation models originally produced by Design Bureau model departments for display at International airshows, museums, and for presentation to veterans bureau employees, business partners and aviation officials.

Additional interesting information on Russian/Soviet aircraft models is contained in the December/January 2003 issue of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine in Gene Eisman's article, "Cold War To Scale.??? The article is on pages 16-17 in the "In The Museum" feature. (Gene's collection of 55 models will be on permanent display starting in December, 2003).

WHY THESE MATERIALS ARE SPECIAL?

Memorabilia selected from special sources and presented in the Aviation Collectibles section are one-of-a kind pieces and most of them were never available to general public.

These distinctive items commemorate the long and glorious history of Russian-Soviet aviation.

-In 1909 Russian designer Igor Sikorsky did his first helicopter experiments (S-2) in Russia, before going to the USA to mass produce helicopters. The famous Sikorsky was born in Kiev in 1989 and his first sea planes, aircraft and tractor biplanes were built in the Ukraine (IS THAT CORRECT?) before he immigrated to the USA;

-In 1913 Russian-Baltic carriage-building plant RBVZ produced the 4-engined bomber "Ilya Muromets", the world's largest aircraft of that time.

-Legendary Russian pilot P.Nesterov went down in world aviation history as the first man to calculate and carry out an acrobatic maneuvres called "Mortal Loop".In 1914 he also became first pilot to ram an enemy aircraft in air combat.

-Antonov designed the world's largest transport aircraft AN-22, AN-124, AN-225.

-Tupolev designed the world's first passenger SST TU-144, first jet airliner TU-104 and world's fastest turboprop TU-114- only couple mentioned from fames designed by him.

-Mil and Kamov produce some of the world's best helicopters.

-The world's biggest and oldest sea plane production plant is a Beriev factory in Russia.

-Wing in ground effect "Ekranoplanes" are exclusives to Russia.

It won't be possible to list entire list of "world's best and first" . This history covered by hundreds of books pubished in USSR, Russia and on the West.

And, finaly, those of you who watched performances of Mig and Sukhoi test pilots and flights of famous aerobatic teams from Kubinka have a good idea where the most skilled and professional pilots fly.These amazing performances we can see now at Moscow International Airshow held every second year at Zhukovskiy outside the capital.

With questions and requests please contact me by e-mail or over the phone.